already converted at his time (867), a few years after the founding of the empire, he certainly
exaggerates. When, in 945, peace was concluded between the Russian grand-duke, Igor, and the
Byzantine emperor, some of the Russian soldiers took the oath in the name of Christ, but by far the
greatest number swore by Perun, the old Russian god. In Kieff, on the Dniepr, the capital of the
Russian realm, there was at that time a Christian church, dedicated to Elijah, and in 955 the
grand-duchess, Olga, went to Constantinople and was baptized. She did not succeed, however, in
persuading her son, Svatoslav, to embrace the Christian faith.
The progress of Christianity among the Russians was slow until the grand-duke Vladimir
(980–1015), a grandson of Olga, and revered as Isapostolos ("Equal to an Apostle") with one sweep
established it as the religion of the country. The narrative of this event by Nestor is very dramatic.
Envoys from the Greek and the Roman churches, from the Mohammedans and the Jews (settled
among the Chazares) came to Vladimir to persuade him to leave his old gods. He hesitated and did
not know which of the new religions he should choose. Finally he determined to send wise men
from among his own people to the various places to investigate the matter. The envoys were so
powerfully impressed by a picture of the last judgment and by the service in the church of St. Sophia
in Constantinople, that the question at once was settled in favor of the religion of the Byzantine
court.
Vladimir, however, would not introduce it without compensation. He was staying at Cherson
in the Crimea, which he had just taken and sacked, and thence he sent word to the emperor Basil,
that he had determined either to adopt Christianity and receive the emperor’s sister, Anne, in
marriage, or to go to Constantinople and do to that city as he had done to Cherson. He married
Anne, and was baptized on the day of his wedding, a.d. 988.
As soon as he was baptized preparations were made for the baptism of his people. The
wooden image of Perun was dragged at a horse’s tail through the country, soundly flogged by all
passers-by, and finally thrown into the Dniepr. Next, at a given hour, all the people of Kieff, men,
women and children, descended into the river, while the grand Duke kneeled, and the Christian
priests read the prayers from the top of the cliffs on the shore. Nestor, the Russian monk and annalist,
thus describes the scene: "Some stood in the water up to their necks, others up to their breasts,
holding their young children in their arms; the priests read the prayers from the shore, naming at
once whole companies by the same name. It was a sight wonderfully curious and beautiful to behold;
and when the people were baptized each returned to his own home."
Thus the Russian nation was converted in wholesale style to Christianity by despotic power.
It is characteristic of the supreme influence of the ruler and the slavish submission of the subjects
in that country. Nevertheless, at its first entrance in Russia, Christianity penetrated deeper into the
life of the people than it did in any other country, without, however, bringing about a corresponding
thorough moral transformation. Only a comparatively short period elapsed, before a complete union
of the forms of religion and the nationality took place. Every event in the history of the nation, yea,
every event in the life of the individual was looked upon from a religious point of view, and referred
to some distinctly religious idea. The explanation of this striking phenomenon is due in part to
Cyrill’s translation of the Bible into the Slavic language, which had been driven out from Moravia
and Bohemia by the Roman priests, and was now brought from Bulgaria into Russia, where it took
root. While the Roman church always insisted upon the exclusive use of the Latin translation of
the Bible and the Latin language in divine service, the Greek church always allowed the use of the
vernacular. Under its auspices there were produced translations into the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian,
rick simeone
(Rick Simeone)
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